Where Are We Now in the #Fight4AAS?

In this Google Hangout, which took place on May 9, 2016, student activists from across the country discuss their respective experiences organizing for Asian American studies on their campuses. The conversation was hosted by 18Million Rising and moderated by Vijay Prashad (Trinity College) and featured Kevin Park and Linda Luu (Hunter College, Coalition to Revitalize Asian American Studies at Hunter), Kevin Luong (Northwestern University, Asian Pacific American Coalition), and Omar Khurshid and Emily Dong (Cornell University, Asian Pacific Americans for Action). The conversation was followed by a Twitter Town Hall where participants tweeted at administration using the hashtag #Fight4AAS.

This conversation situated the fight for Asian American studies at Hunter within a national movement for Asian American studies. Vijay Prashad characterized Asian American studies as a subset of ethnic studies, which is a subset of what he considers anti-racist studies. The conversation also highlighted schools at different points in their struggles towards institutionalization—with Northwestern having just achieved an Asian American Studies major in 2016 after a 25-year fight that included a historic hunger strike in 1995, and Hunter and Cornell in the beginning stages of a campaign and a task force, respectively, to establish an Asian American Studies Department and major. 18MillionRising is a platform that uses digital organizing tactics to build and mobilize around Asian American identity.

The Hunter College Asian American Studies Program (AASP) was established in 1993. As the only academic program in Asian American studies in the CUNY system, the AASP offers a minor in Asian American Studies and other resources and programming. The AASP supports scholars, artists, and activists advancing scholarship in the fields of Asian American studies and critical ethnic studies and serves as a resource for New York City's Asian American communities. In 2006, the program was at risk of being cut due to a lack of funding. Students formed the Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter (CRAASH) and saved the program within a year. CRAASH is now a student-run club that continues to advocate for the AASP.

18MillionRising

May 9, 2016

English

18MillionRising

Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter

Public Domain

okay it says live now so we're life hello everybody I'm not sure how many of you out there but even if I'm talking to myself that's life I wanted to start with a little lime from Bessie head from her very fine novel called a question of power Bessie head is a South African novelist one of the great writers in the anti-apartheid movement and in her book she wrote as she fell asleep she placed one soft hand over her land as she fell asleep she placed one soft hand over her land it was a gesture of belonging my name is Vijay Prashad and I'm happy to have this opportunity to moderate a conversation for the fight for AAS this is part of the eight million rising dot-org conversation and I recommend you go to the website to go to 8 million rising dog and have a look at this conversation which is in collaboration with a series of student groups particularly from Cornell University from Hunter College and from from Northwestern so you'll hear from the students in a few minutes but I want you to pay attention for a second to this line again as she fell asleep she placed one soft hand over her land it was a gesture of belonging in many ways the entire attempt at producing ethnic studies in the United States is a gesture of belonging a claim an attempt to put the hand over the land and say that we belong here we're part of what this place is we want you to join the conversation in order for that go to Twitter in Twitter a hashtag is fight the number four and then AAS again the hashtag is fight the number for AAS join the converse asian please let us know what you think as well there's a Facebook site that you can find if you go into facebook and just type fight for AAS we're going to start with a little update from Omar so Omar why don't you give us a little bit about yourself and then tell us about what you've been what do you want to share with us hi my name is America shave uh I've I'm from Cornell or I graduated from Cornell last year and I'm i'm working with AP double-a asian pacific americans for action the student group that I was part of for the Asian American Studies campaign the update i wanted to give you guys was from sfsu which as you might know is the where the origin of the ethnic studies movement started so the College of ethnic studies are is currently undergoing budget cuts of forty percent and there's been a strong resistance movement that call themselves defendant admits ethnic study ethnic studies at sfu so there's currently a hunger strike by for students calling themselves the third world Liberation Front 2016 and they have some demands and you can see their demands on the Facebook page if you search defend in advance ethnic studies a deficit also the other update was at William in college of william and mary the the students there have that have push for the past couple of years for Asian Pacific Islander American Studies have recently got a minor as a couple of weeks ago so that's it okay thanks Omar um now we're going to stay with Cornell for a minute and have Emily Emily dong introduce yourself so take it away Emily cool thanks thanks PJ I'm a sophomore at Cornell and I'm part of Asian Pacific Americans for action and which is an advocacy group here on our campus and I'm I've been involved with the Asian American Studies program um yeah okay thanks Emily we're going to now move on to the college from where we first hear from Linda and then from Kevin so hello Linda hi virginity thanks so much for the introductions um my name is Linda I'm a third year student at hunter college and I minor in Asian American Studies and I mobilized with crash which is the Coalition for the revitalization American stead with that hunter yeah okay Kevin it's your turn mo hi everyone my name is Kevin Park I'm also with crash and Hunter College um I'm a senior studying asian american studies yeah like linda said we've organized organizing around the program i also want to give two quick updates as well one to just acknowledge that williams college is also I've trying to get the nage Marcus news program on their campus we just saw the link being shed around and also that there was a recent update at Dartmouth actually that the only remaining faculty was higher for an Asian Americans position was denied tenure even with unanimous departmental so just to give quick update about these different schools as well and yeah thanks for the introduction Vijay I'm excited for the conversation okay so let's go back to Chicago where we have another Kevin Kevin is from Northwestern so hello Kevin hey thanks for the introduction yeah I'm Kevin I'm a senior studying political science and asian-american studies with the Asian Pacific American Coalition here at Northwestern I'm also joined by T and who's was another previous president of the organization uh yeah so we recently had a great victory actually I'm succeeding and obtaining a major for the Asian American Studies program here at Northwestern but you know we recognize that not only is it a first is is one of many steps for us but also kind of just one of many small steps from the national movement as a whole and we know that a lot of ethnic studies programs are facing cuts and other struggles across the nation that's something we definitely on the score super thanks a lot so what we're going to do for the first little period is have a brief history of each of the clubs and as well I think get a little sense of where we are today with Asian Americans is in particular but of course as you know Asian American Studies is a subset of ethnic studies which is really a subset of what i consider anti-racist studies so will first hear from our friends at Cornell and then we'll hear from our friends at Hunter and then we'll come back to Kevin at Northwestern so why don't you give us a sense Cornell of where the clubs have been and where things are today uh so hey I'm going to talk about the history of AP delay so we were founded in the fall of nineteen ninety six by two students Gloria you and Michael Chang they actually renamed a previous organization called Asian American Coalition and that group days the ACA AC actually start began in the early 70s so they started I think the earliest record we have is of them in 1972 when they joined a coalition of other third world student groups Native American students and Chicano students pushing for ethnic studies Asian Mecca studies Native American Studies and chicano studies so that was a thousand movement that they started in 1972 till nineteen seventy-four they submitted a proposal they did an ethic studies conference back then but it didn't get I didn't get anywhere and then we also the asian american coalition was also part of the anti-apartheid movement at Cornell as well as the anti-war movement and they were also pushing for more resources for asian-american students getting the admissions to recruit low lower income asian student asian-american students as well as in particular you know Southeast Asian students who were underrepresented and then we there's another push in nineteen in the 1980s 1985 with against like crossed a racial coalition called the First World coalition and they actually among many other demands also asked pushed for Asian Studies a year later in 1986 there was the students for diversity academics and they specifically push for a Hispanic studies program as well as an agent research program in 1987 of was when a HP was actually founded the other thing that the gauge American Coalition was actually helped do was host E kaasoo which is the east coast asian american student union conference in 1988 and then later in 1998 after we became a PLA and in 2008 and since uh since we became a P Double A we've been publishing parallax which is a asian american social put a political journal we've pushed we've organized around anti-asian violence that happened in the early 2000s at cornell campus and also at syracuse in the late 90s and that organizing led to a task force on a generic issues and also mental health issues because there is a high suicide rate of aging american students at cornell as well as a low citizens faction of the experience at cornell by asian-american students that task force actually led to the creation of the asian asian reconsider the a3c which is our resource center for asian asian american students in two thousand so that's most of the things we've been doing we recently started a celebration for asian american women that's what we've been doing too since 2008 and emily can update you with what we're doing now yeah so i think well i'm gonna before i talk about what we're doing now i'm just going to give in a brief history about the Asian American Studies program um I think Omar hit upon it but we are created in eighteen nineteen eighty-seven as a program and we've had about 4.5 lines for faculty we've been having issues with hiring or filling all these lines and especially recently we're having we have a couple of profiles we have one professor leaving and some going on sabbatical so it's just really hard for us to provide classes in the program and retain faculty because we're not actually filling these faculty lines we just have visiting professors um and regarding AP double-a what we're doing currently so we're actually have our first first task force meeting tomorrow on how to actually push for achieving Department status and actually getting a major for Asian American Studies so yeah that's what's happening at Cornell and we can move towards other schools now yes sir let's go to Hunter College sure so at Hunter College we have an Asian American Studies program that started in 1993 in response to student and faculty demands and the in 2006 the administration was going to cut the program and a group of students mobilized around it and formed the coalition for the revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter which is crash on the club that we're currently working under so they created a lot of noise around the program and contacted public officials and they managed to save the program within a year and that's when the director of the Asian American Studies program was hired and currently we have we offer the most Asian American Studies courses and all the CUNY system and we're the only Asian American Studies program in the CUNY system and so it has grown a lot in terms of the fact that we have a director we have more classes we have a ton of student enrollment 40 to 50 minors per semester but this is largely through the labor of students who've organized during the program as well as the director of the program and there are still huge gaps in support for our program all of our faculty our adjunct faculty except for our director who is full time but not tenure track and so with the 10 year anniversary of crashes founding we've launched a campaign to advocate for an Asian American Studies major and Department and we started that off with a town hall where we invited students faculty administrators Dean's and sort of around why we need Asian American Studies and we have also we met with the Dean at our school the Dean of Arts and Sciences at our school about it when we received a lot of reasoning reasoning around why we cannot have a department and which includes the hiring of five new faculty lines but um there is a hiring freeze at CUNY currently so so the argument has been that we cannot hire Asian American Studies faculty but we really see all these reasons as a lack of investment in Asian American Studies at Hunter College I don't have Kevin wants to jump in with anything yeah before I actually move on just to do a quick shout out to all the people who are watching I hope you're also tweeting because this is like dual action happening so we have a whole team shout out to them for being so great on twitter if you could retweet because we're also reaching out to administrators and elected officials so we all would love if you could help mobilize what we're doing right now and quote us and tweet at the elected officials or administrators that our accounts have already tweeted um and that should be in the face book description if you don't know what that is oh yeah just to also add on to what Linda was saying we offer the most a generic States courses throughout New York City um and we and just to talk about CUNY and York City has just in terms of demographics New York City has the largest Asian urban population in the country with over fifty percent of the population of city of New York and CUNY itself has 23 campuses so for those might not know cuny stands for City University of New York and we have 23 campuses in 6 out of 23 have over twenty five percent asian american student bodies and specifically a hunter we have about a third asian-american students that make up the student body um well currently we like Linda say we only have one full-time non-tenure track faculty and everyone else's adjuncts which not only speaks to the administration's prioritization of the program but also the instability of the program itself and her the Faculty's contract will be a preparation next year which only it's actually a greater urgency for us to mobilize just save the program which is why we came out to say that we will want full time faculty hiring lines created for asian american studies as well as a major approval of a major yeah that's about it and we'll pass the poem to Northwestern that's right we're going back to Chicago again to Northwestern yeah so um yeah you know I'm a part of the Asian Pacific American Coalition which actually started in 91 under the name of the Asian American advisors report um in 95 the Asian American advisory board successfully organized a hunger strike for the creation the very creation of Asian American Asian American Studies program here at Northwestern so it's very much a program of rigid and asian-american activism and at the same time we still didn't get all the demands um you know it was it was very much a step-by-step process and getting to the point we are today and it's only after 20 21 years later that we've been able to actually get a major and we still remain a program as do many programs across the country and really we're working now to both implement the major but to also kind of get more resources directed to the program and of course hopefully a new feature also make the department um we've had a growing number of miners every year and I'm like really happy to announce that we will have our first class of official Asian American Studies majors here at Northwestern next year and yeah that's about it I really hope that not only we can set like an example for a lot of the other schools um both in the Midwest and across the country um that we can kind of you know basically like take but take a strong stand in this like coalition based movement as it goes on well thanks a lot of you know I I was in the Asian American Studies program at Cornell about 20 years ago and one of my main colleagues who actually sucked me into this field was Gary akihiro and Gary wrote a book in the 1990s called margins and main streams where the basic argument was that the mainstream doesn't actually make American history great you know talk about Donald Trump let's make America great again you know what Gary argued was everything good in American history has come from the margins from people struggling to seize the baton and to move history along that the good things in this country have never come from the elites which is why I mean I feel an immense sense of pride to share this webinar with young students who are actually carrying the agenda from the margins to the mainstream it's not administrators who ever made ethnic studies you know administrators never delivered ethnic studies even though you might go to these celebratory events now where a president or a Dean will sit there and say we're so proud to have ethnic studies we're so proud to have african-american studies so proud to have Asian American Studies actually when the students clamored for ethnic studies or Asian American Studies or African Studies the administration said this is bogus it's junk it's not really worth having on a college campus so we have to keep in mind that these fields of study of inquiry what I call anti-racist studies is the inheritance of students fighting to bring this on to american college campuses and that fight has not ended and i'm really happy to be with all of you to really think through the future of not only asian american studies but ethnic studies not only ethnic studies but really friends anti-racism that's what we're about we're not here to stroked our egos we want to learn our histories in order to make a better country in order to make a better society that's what drives us so on that note we'll have a little discussion amongst those of us who are on this panel let's call it a panel we'll have a little discussion then we're going to go to Twitter to answer questions so make sure that you remember that the hashtag on twitter is fight the number four a s so fight for Asian American Studies fight the number four a s so join the conversation there but before we get to the Twitter questions let's have a little chat amongst each other the thing I want to start with really is to ask you why after all these years I mean after all Asian American Studies is rooted in the fight in san francisco in 1968 you know before any of you I mean some of your parents might have been born in 1968 just about 1968 so it's like prehistory for most of you when Asian American Studies begins and it's unfathomable that this is continuing in every generation to be a struggle so I want to ask you very briefly friends to just you know give me a testimony of why this Asian American Studies matters to you at all who's going Emily hey shake um yeah so I think it's interesting you bring up San Francisco State University yeah um like especially since you think about how they call themselves a third world Liberation Front back in the 60s and then now you have in 2016 they're calling themselves the third world Liberation Front 2016 for me something really powerful about Asian American Studies it may be any sort of ethnic studies is the idea of resistance um I think any resistance is really interesting to me and to be able to kind of reclaim resistance like tactics strategies especially how students are resisting against sir in university structures it was really powerful and inspiring yeah I think for me a lot of my personal experiences with a generic studies is rooted in my interests in resistance and reconciliation of nationalism in this idea of ethnicity and how that translates to the future and future type like future imaginations of resistance I like that idea of future imaginations of resistance because after all no resistance is ever complete it brings forth in contradiction you know the enemy gets strengthened by our resistance transforms itself and we have to be supple and aware that they have changed so we must also change anybody else wants to offer a short testimony if I may uh yeah I think for me what's also important about our context that CUNY is that as a public school as a city university we're working with predominantly working-class commuter students and students of color Matt and I think that for me when I took my first asian-american studies class and i finally got to feel that that one the knowledge that i was deprived of and then secondly the fire I felt when I was like oh this is what it means to actually know be given the context in which um you know everyone who was responsible for bringing me here let's give it to me so I think to deprive students at CUNY who I think who are at the most need for this kind of a critical field that's where my passion comes from in advocating ensing for an advocating for asian record studies on a public school campus within the city of New York um yeah and I think the other part of it is is that like you said BJ students are always part of the movement it's not a you know it's it's not necessarily the administration was going to be willing to take the lead and provide means for us and if you look at the way colleges and universities are structured universe address students hold the most power right we're the ones who pay the tuition we're the ones who proved pretty much out number everyone else so I think it is important for us to self-actualize that power and our agency within our agency and being able to advocate and voice what kind of education we want for ourselves as undergraduate students and that is also a big piece for me you know I wanted to say something about that you said two things that were very interesting one was you said that a public school is a place where this is actually very important because people who come to a public school you know are prepared ready to get this kind of analysis this kind of critical analysis especially a city like New York where questions of race need to be understood you know when a Asian American police officer is involved in a in a shooting of an african-american man we need a theory to explain what's happening here you know we can't just rely upon the media which is guttered you know we need a proper theory for which I I agree with you the context of places like New York City San Francisco Los Angeles there's a real necessity to have a critical theory of race to bring us to a better understanding so that we don't fall into very shallow media driven elite driven narrative of you know events that such as happened in New York but the other thing that you said and as others talk with their testimony I'd like you to think a little bit about the upsurge around say the Bernie Sanders campaign and the question of college debt being central to what Sanders has raised you see one part of college is college debt in other words what you have to pay so that your imagination is not allowed to grow you know you're scared you so much in debt you don't have the opportunity to take classes such as in ethnic studies that help you become a citizen you're forced to go into a field that so calls so-called will help you with your career because of debt but the other side which Sanders and company haven't picked up which i think is a question in a sense of race on college campuses is what some people call neoliberalism on campus you know in other words this whole question of sorry fellas we can't fund critical ethnic studies because we have to fund you know the stem science technology and engineering these are more important they are help you go to medical school help you do this help you do that so this new liberal consciousness is the other side of the debt crisis on the one side you have to pay to go to college so that your imagination shrinks on the other side they're not providing you with imagination opening you know programs because they say there's not enough funding so I want us to think a little bit is it possible for us to add to the Bernie upsurge and to say fellas it's not just about college debt it's also about the debt of imagination or the deficit of imagination on college campuses yeah I think I can speak to this um I very much think the role of ethnic studies on any college campus is I think as you briefly talked about before to like bring the margins forward and to ground our work not only in ethnic studies but in almost like every other academic field because in a way the variable ethnic studies is is complicating not only the these fields of studies themselves but complicating the boundaries that exists between these fields so I think like that debt of imagination is something that ethnic studies has always been doing and in terms of bringing things like experiential knowledge to our work and that's something that I think is ever pressing now as you talk as you talk about how this does neoliberal consciousness is like so much at the forefront right now I'm and so much of our work let's let's have I mean I'm I want a Linda to come in and other Kevin to come in as well in a minute but um oh we've had both Kevin sorry I want Linda to come in in a minute but Linda I want you also to help us because again you know you're at a certain context you're again in New York City you have a certain landscape in the city that propels the work you do with crash I want us to think about the following you know one of the complaints that you sometimes hear about regarding say asian american studies etc is that these are narrow fields you know it's for asian students what about black students or students from the caribbean etc and in fact the history of the asian american studies has never been exclusionary it was founded with the broadest possible understanding of liberation so tell us a little bit Linda from your experience you know at a big major public university is asian-american studies for you and narrow horizon what has it been for you yeah sure so I want to bring up two things one is that and sort of like making this argument around Asian American Studies is for all students not just asian-american students we've been trying to keep mine not to sort of replicate this neoliberal logic of like oh we need ethnicity zor asian american studies because we are training the next generation of leaders to sort of like work in a diverse landscape like for example in new york city or the country right so but rather that ethnic studies or specifically asian american studies is a field that produces critical scholarship about a ton of different and interdisciplinary and it brings in all these different disciplines right and it also like touches on all these intersectional identities that we're not just looking at race but we're also looking at gender and sexuality and we're doing this through a bunch of different fields as well and looking at asian american literature we're looking at it from a social sciences perspective as well so for me its Asian American Studies is like at it's very heart intersectional and it's at its heart interdisciplinary um so yeah that's what I have to say about that just to let you know we're about halfway through this webinar and a hashtag again is fight the number for AAS at some point not your Twitter questions so make sure you have questions we're going to come to Omar for a minute now Omar I want you to think a little more along the lines of what Linda just talked about the importance of intersectionality that something like Asian American Studies is a you know has a broad a connectivity let's call it that links out reaches out to other liberation struggles whether it's you know questions of sexuality questions of identity in broad sense and of course also questions of class what is your testimonial about Asian American Studies and this broad intersectional landscape alright so my experience in a generic studies actually I mean I found out about a genetic studies like the last with my senior year and so I was only able to take one course which was the South Asian task for a course that you know you founded 20 years ago and the professor wouldn't sink is actually teaching and my experience in that course was that the dead in particular that the the knowledge that I was learning that we were we weren't just looking at the the this specific South Asian migrations but their their relations with communities that they interacted with so for example if we're looking at the we're looking at the East Indians in Trinidad and Tobago and then the crew realization that happened there and the you know the mixing that happens and that how like that that how do I take you ate it um that it it created a very different politics that was both there was I guess a struggle deciding for identity of whether it's something that's homogeneous whether that you know you're taking from your homeland country a homeland or whether you're taking also from the local local local culture pretty much what I what I learned from that course was that that these the struggles of for example the coolie labor in in Trinidad and Tobago at you know how that related to the you know the abolition of slavery and the sort of positionality of you know Africans in Trinidad Tobago and then the East Indians so there's like I think the relations the you see between is definitely a studied and examined and cult and critically you know thought about in the in the so so I'm I'm actually glad you brought up the idea of people teaching classes because after all that's at the heart of the mission of ethnic studies Asian American Studies anti-racist studies etc the other piece of this of course is as I mentioned earlier as all of you are living embodiments of is student politics and students driving their own agenda but let's come back to the classes for a few minutes recently I was talking to soya Jeong I don't know if you know the work of change lab and I made a facetious comment that Asian American Studies is run out of gas you know essentially a you know it developed out of the 68 strike you know very important histories were written a very important arguments were made about the so called contribution of asian-americans to US history just as in the same way african-american history argued for the so-called contributions and the reason I keep saying so-called is that after all it's not like asians contributed to american history as if american history is a thing itself and asians just contribute I mean this is the fallacy or the whitening of history you know there is no such thing as American history that is outside the history of African Americans Native Americans Asian Americans you know you name it everybody has actually shaped the history they didn't just contribute but that's how we think about it we say they contributed so after that period ended you know in the 2000s we began to talk about the intersections you know say let's say instead of writing about Asian Americans and white history just to put it bluntly it was what's the relationship between Asian Americans and African Americans or Asian Americans and Latinos and a great many books were written about you know in the world of ethnic sir is a relationship between different you know so-called minority communities and this is also run out of steam because you know how many more books do we need that show that there was a complication in rich interaction between these so-called minority groups what is the next agenda for Asian American Studies ethnic studies you know what do you want to argue what do what are the stories that you have that you want to tell us what are the stories that we need to reflect in our mirror that you want to also I want you to tell me what's the next big breakthrough that needs to happen for Asian American Studies to be exciting once again don't think too hard and by the way the hashtag again is fight for AAS so come on somebody what's the next big breakthrough what ideas do you have you ok Linda you I'm just trying to charge my lap okay okay I'm just trying to reach for the app okay Kevin buck what do you have to say for yourself um pretty loaded question there um I would say this is part of it the need for Asian American Studies like you said to take a critical examination at where it's come from and where are we now I mean in terms of I mean there's still so much work being done in trying to include people in the margins within the margins so I feel like there's so much work in terms of like you know there's always this course about including um like is there space with an asian american studies when it's a whim i try say um uh yeah I guess I feel like there's so much work still needs needed to be done in terms of actually being able to address the margins within the margins within asian american studies so whether it's with other Islanders or its southeast asians communities or South Asian communities I think that is also becoming part of the conversation as we become more connected through the H we are at now and I think the other part of it too is and what other ways are we taking what is viewed as I don't know how are we challenging traditional notions of critical scholarship and academia by doing something like this by as undergraduates I don't know taking charge in our own education when the academic what it was was ladder so to speak I don't know doesn't necessarily support us doing so I don't know that made sense yeah I made sense now it's fun Emily let's have Emily come in yeah sure ok this is this is kind of off of what Kevin same but not really so I think like for me I feel I think there needs to be more talks talk of like this idea of nationalism like I think you mentioned it before bj like the idea of like American this like I want to call I think asian Micah studies this relates to intersectionality but like I stead of simply just talking about intersectionality I want to talk about like this idea of a nation-state and i will also think this ties into the limits of this even goes to like what are the limits of recognition you know like what is it about if I don't think we're fighting for recognition of Asian American Studies I think it's about like reclaiming a certain sort of power resistance this goes to like why I'm interested in Asian America study so um am I talk about nationalism I think maybe it's in a way broadening the idea of asian american studies like what is American what are the Americas and has really too not just asian american studies but like the idea of other cellular states like what can that inform us about resistance and how to move forward so I think maybe I opened a can of worms there or something but maybe other people can jump in by the way I don't think you opened a bad can of worms I think this is perhaps exactly where we are I mean you know after all we've been now 15 years in the era of the global war on terror and you know about 12 years ago amer Asia journal which was one of the flagship journals of Asian American Studies did a special issue on the Global War on Terror after all this has effects on Asian Americans in the United States that is those who are Muslim those who look like Muslims those who are terrorists or look like terrorists I mean etc you know there's a domestic component of it and of course you know the United States has been at war in one Asian country or the other almost nonstop from the end of a world war two you know Korea Vietnam and now of course Iraq you know you pick your asian country and the United States is at war in it so questions of war questions of who is an American I mean you've nailed it perhaps the great revitalization of asian american studies has to come from not only you know the so-called contribution of asians to American history but the critique of nationalism I think that's a very good way to frame it anybody else we have a few minutes for this section I was just going to add that I think that the sort of birth of the ethnic studies movement was with an anti-imperialist politics right so definitely sticking to that keeping up the critique of us nationalism us appeals militarism and also problematizing what it is to be Asian American just like you know Emily said to challenge our complicity in settler colonialism and I want to also challenge the idea of the inclusion of Pacific Islanders because the API I you know umbrella term is very problematic you know it it it erases and invisible eise's you know the Pacific Islanders and makes it kind of interchangeable between Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders you know there's indigenous communities that you know we need to we need to consider it you know at sfsu the pacifica pacific islanders club actually asked for pacific 100 pacific islander studies that is separate from asian american studies to be created so something along those lines might be something we want to think about is not just inclusion for the sake goes your including but actually seeing like you know trying to see what how that what that inclusion does and what that means and what are we will be in closing and what are we kind of leave homogenizing a guest by include by inclusion all right that was superb by the way I just want to say that behind the scenes you can't see them but we have from 18 million rising and i welcome you to go to the website 18 million rising org from 18 million rising we have mark and caden who are helping us behind the scene technically and they're the ones who are going to share with us the questions that come from twitter so don't forget the hashtag is a fight the number for AAS and we have some questions already in from Twitter and i'm going to just read a few of them out and let you think about answers so why don't i read a couple of them friends and then you know i guess you guys know it takes notes to remember the questions I read a couple of questions and then we can you know try it on soon from Eric with generations of AAPI student activists for your campuses what efforts are underway to include alumni today this is an interesting question and the way I'd like to just extend it is um you know is there really is has there been a capture of generations of activists on campus who you know after they graduate I don't know what happens to many of them you know is there a way to capture some of that energy and enthusiasm and bottle it into a powerful fists you know to fight for democracy on college campuses and by the way while we're at it democracy in America so how do you engage with the alumni and should there be some way to capture that energy um I'm actually very excited about this question because crash in its ten years of founding would be nowhere without its founders in 2006 they did a great job of leaving us one that logo you see my lower third they created that in 2006 um they also you know left us the Constitution because the charging process here is very arduous and even the logistical stuff like that was enough and we had the opportunity to actually connect with the founder Olivia Lynn as well as other co-founders like Christopher Aang when and we actually organized we reached out to them to organize a crash alumni dinner to ask them how they did it when 10 years ago and then as a way to also orient the newer crash members in how where the struggle has come from and where where we can take it as and then I think the I think sometimes I let me at least in my experience I I tend to you know it's now that I realized the powerful alumni as well in terms of influencing administrators because they're the ones that are also trying to make an institution look good so we actually have like the testimonies about from from alumni about the importance of Asian market studies on our age American cities program web and we're also asking them for letters of support and I think looping them in throughout what we're doing and then I was even I mean we were even thinking of starting an age America Alumni Association group to hold because the fight for an aged American cities major will definitely outlast probably the current members here but in order to keep that going to make sure that the administration doesn't know that we're not going anywhere we've been here for 10 years I hope their names strike fear in the current administration's hearts and that are as well and that you know we'll be checking back every year you know how's the process going just to make sure that as alumni's we can stay engaged even after we leave yeah I think ya like like heaven was saying countering institutional memory is such a strong role for alumni last year we had a commemoration event where a lot of the original hunger strikers that helped establish the Asian American Studies program here at Northwestern where will come and I think for a lot of students and for us organizers t-ville to see them was just really inspiring and made it very possible in our eyes alright let's move on to another question which is an interesting question about the effect of neoliberalism on students for instance so how do you as veteran kick-ass activists on campus how do you prevent falling into activism as another form of extracurricular activity of getting professionalized you know in other words a Kevin Kevin Emily Linda Omar is this the start of your political career this complete silence from everybody its interests yeah so actually the streets from my ta for Asian American Studies and I was complaining to her about the professionalization of activism like it's something you see on college campuses everywhere and I don't know i think it's interesting because activism i even the term activism i think has become an odd term like I think before it wasn't really called activism ray is called direct struggle or so it was about like people bonding people bonding over a shared struggles or shared experiences in joining together to claim space and claim power until like address the material repercussions or ramifications of like certain structures or whatever um so I think we've lost that in a way I think well this is the importance of looking at our histories right like I think this is why I think studies is so important how are you supposed to move forward and look address the material ramifications of like white supremacy or like neoliberalism if you don't know the history and you don't and you can't look at certain like strategies that people use to rise up and fight against these structures so see one of the interesting shifts was the shift on college campuses from kind of radical student activism to public policy and the desire to you know be very reasonable you know Obama recently attacked activists saying why do you silence people etc you know you should just argue with them I mean I don't understand that because let's say I you know some guy is giving a commencement speech how am I going to have a dialogue with that person you that person doesn't take me seriously so you stand up and say you know I don't agree with you you're a war criminal ways they say don't disrupt it so the there's been this concerted effort to shift student politics from activism of a radical fine to public policy pseudo reasonable ism you know let's call it that and I think you know this needs discussion people need to think about how do they want to be activists do they want to be activists as you know the beginning of a reasonable political career or do they want to change the world because I mean a reasonable political career doesn't change the first you just become part of the mainstream there's been a question about whether to shift you know asian american studies from what it was to a diasporic approach and i think in a sense that shift has already occurred you know so-called transnational asian american studies and such like I think the really interesting development we've had here is this idea of the critique of nationalism and I think we should take this seriously we should try to develop what is an asian american studies which is a critique of American nationalism in the age of Trump I think this is a really good idea we're going to move on now to some Twitter work that you have to do I think Kevin and Omar are going to take us to this why don't we first go to Kevin to tell us what to do on Twitter so Kevin go ahead thanks PJ so hopefully everyone throughout this conversation has been following also the hashtag fight for AAS if you haven't heard it at least five times you know it's 54 AS with the number four and you know if you tremendous help to retweet what has been going on just to make sure that people are seeing this as a trending conversation but uh for us specifically at Hunter College we had some prepared tweets for New York City and York State elected officials as well as administrators to let them know that you know we would want them to support our efforts for Asian American Studies so specifically for Hunter we have tweets directed up at our Kerner mr. administrators at Hunter president that's president Jennifer Rob uh you know uh one we have a bunch of prepared tweets like one full-time non-tenure-track AAS faculty for 16 thousand five hundred fifty undergrads hashtag CUNY so white hashtag fight for a s as well as will you support an Asian American Studies major at CUNY follow us at fight for a s and that would be to uh for example council members Margaret chin and Peter KU as well as the other elected officials that are a Twitter account at Hunter crash is tweeting so please follow the hashtag and just retweet and if you want to be creative and create your own that'd be great and just tweet at these different accounts so yeah what more do you want to add anything else right so for Cornell our main targets are you know the institution of the administration so at Cornell for the institution the College of Arts and Sciences which is at Cornell cas that's where Asian American Studies is actually hosted on there so I definitely tweet to them at at Ritter gauss rit ter GA us that's Gretchen rid of the Dean of College of Arts and Sciences so we want to we want you guys to tweet all three of them some examples of what you can tweet um make at cornell asp a department give us intellectual autonomy with the hashtag always keep the hashtag fight for AAS the other compete we have prepared to eat is a quenelle can't live up to any person any study if we don't hire more faculty to teach courses in AS another tweet we have is you know if we care about our reputation why are we letting our once successful AAS programs fail and another one we have it it's Asian American Studies we're fighting for not asian studies it's a common actually responds to you know for us trying to organize for a dip you know in expansion of Asian American Studies is like oh we already have asian studies but of course there's differences in Asian American Studies from Asian Studies and also retweet from our account which is at APA APA a Cornell so at APA a Cornell and there and retweet some other tweets that we put up there loudly by the way administrators love hearing from you it's called democracy they feel that social media is a place for them to do their so called branding propaganda it's equally good place to reach out to them and tell them what you believe how you feel the kinds of things you'd like to have them you know do for you not because your customers but because you want to make a richer democracy you know uh tempt in ethnic studies Asian American Studies anti-racist studies is not to produce students who treat the world like their customers at a mall but to produce active you know passionate people who want to make the world a better place so that's the attitude with which we've been with you for the last hour I'm very happy to have been with Kevin Linda Kevin Omar and Emily behind the scenes we had Kayden and mocked helping us out I began with a line from Bessie head and the line was about the gesture of belonging you know putting your hand out on your land as a gesture of belonging and I think I want to return to that a little bit it's very important for us to remember that the fight for ethnic studies the fight for liberation really in the societies we live in amongst all people in the society not merely inside the inside the Academy inside colleges and universities this is a broad struggle that transcends the university walls but it also happens inside the University the University is not an ivory tower it's not some place outside the pressures of society indeed is in it is where the people who go go out to society are produced therefore it's very important to understand that if you want to make a democratic society it better start while you're being educated that temper of democracy has to be created crafted while you're young if you don't craft it while you're young it's very hard to learn it later it's a little bit like a third fourth fifth language if you don't get these early it's hard to come to them so become a democratic person while you're in college a struggle for things you believe in you're not just merely reaching out to become a customer you want to lay your hand on the land in a gesture of belonging everybody in our colleges belongs and therefore everybody needs to belong I want to end our conversation with a piece of graffiti that was scrawled on the walls of Paris in 1968 the same year as the other side of the world in San Francisco where the ethnic studies movement begins in 1968 the crazy students of Paris Road be realistic demand the impossible what I'm asking you to do and what I think everybody here is asking you to do in other words Kevin Linda Kevin Omar Emily what we're asking you to do is to be realistic by which we mean of course demand the impossible thanks for being with us and have a great day wait TJ can I say one thing okay yeah I was just going to say one will someone asked where the sample tweets can be for a hundred crash at least with two ways we can in a tweet that links to all the sample tweets and then secondly we want this to be an ongoing conversation at least among like at the very least among the undergrads so please follow our accounts so that we talk about organizing more webinars or just even dialogues and strategizing which in other schools so please keep an eye out for that because I know this isn't just a you know we're only going to get stronger so yeah thanks so much everyone goodbye

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